This depends on University"s and apex body (i.e. UGC - University Grants Commission, India) rules and regulations regarding PhD. According to UGC, One has to do First -- Pre PhD course, Second -- registration for PhD in University, Third -- complete PhD work in three years, Fourth -- submitting the thesis, Viva Voce, and awarding degree.

If one does not follow this process, he/she will not be eligible for teaching assignment.

This process may differ country to country.

You  can check Brunel University London... You have to publish three papers and then  do your viva to get your PhD degree !! so, basically, each paper will be a stand alone chapter.. you don't follow the normal way of writing up a thesis (Introduction, LR, Theoretical Framework, Methodology, results, discussion and conclusion)

Hi Rahul

this depends on the university and its PhD regulations, also heavily on your supervisors. I think a lot of universities in UK ( just as instance) foster the PhD by publications. Just check it on their webpages. Also I would suggest you find motivated supervisors that are willing to guide you! How many papers surely depends on the universities regulations but also on the quality of your publications. At the end you bring your papers together with an introduction and an ending part .

Good luck! 

Best

Samuel 

This depends on University"s and apex body (i.e. UGC - University Grants Commission, India) rules and regulations regarding PhD. According to UGC, One has to do First -- Pre PhD course, Second -- registration for PhD in University, Third -- complete PhD work in three years, Fourth -- submitting the thesis, Viva Voce, and awarding degree.

If one does not follow this process, he/she will not be eligible for teaching assignment.

This process may differ country to country.

I am unaware of such, i agree with the process by @ Subhash, which is the process in India

Dear @Rahul, please find attached Top Rated PhD Programs in the U.S.! Perfect school search is included! You may search for marketing and tourism.

http://study.com/top_rated_phd_programs.html

At the University of Tartu (Estonia) it is possible to defend a PhD as a collection of articles (at least 3 papers published in good journals or in books by good publishing houses; it is allowed to publish these also with co-authors) but in that case, the student should also write an introduction and also a concluding section to such a collection. Also, it is possible to get a PhD for a book published in a good publishing house but in that case, the book should be written alone. In both cases, the student also has to take several courses from the university (but it is allowed to substitute most courses with similar PhD level courses taken in other universities).

Dear @Rahul, after reading previous posts, I have realized that you are speaking about getting Ph.D based on previous publications. I am free to attach some good articles, blogs... about with different opinions about. The PhD by publication offers an alternative path to the traditional PhD by thesis, but it is viewed by some as inferior. Good reading!

http://thesiswhisperer.com/2014/02/12/thesis-by-publications-youre-joking-right/

https://www.kent.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/types/published-works.html

http://theconversation.com/a-phd-by-publication-or-how-i-got-my-doctorate-and-kept-my-sanity-11012

http://www.independent.co.uk/student/postgraduate/postgraduate-study/the-alternative-way-to-get-a-phd-1942607.html

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/looks-good-on-paper/416988.article

http://patthomson.net/2013/04/18/the-phd-and-publicationby-publication-a-very-peculiar-practice-part-one/

http://patthomson.net/2013/04/22/phd-by-publication-or-phd-and-publication-part-two/

We should first define Phd as a degree and as a title; Phd or the doctorate degree is a post graduate educated level for academic needs. The Phd program could (or not) requires added graduate courses to meet with the field of the Phd subject (if the supervisor estimates its precondition according to the student's abilities). In general case Phd studies are managed under the supervision of a professor for the analysis and investigation of a scientific subject, these studies are scheduled  for the purpose to job application in the academic and/or research sector i.e to train and coach the student to his/her future academic career. The student should meets the expected results of his study at least in 3 or 4 years.

If the research program under the granted institution able student's publications, the student could submits some parts of the Phd subject, who when accepted, are sound as academic recognition of his/her work from international peers. In that case the publication should be authored by the student and acknowledged by his supervisor . However publications are mandatory for the professor and his team (ie the employed people from the university who organizes phd programs) , the phd student could be added as coauthor if the supervisor publishes some of his/her results , however the publication of the supervisor shouldn't be a credit for the student thesis. 

In general case phd students  should publish a full thesis or memory for their university, and should defend it in a dissertation or communication form, in front of a panel of jury, to be accepted and credited with the Phd title from this university. So one should understood that phd programs and titles are connected with each university academic functioning. basically for teaching and research requirements in fundamental and pedagogical sciences .  So added international publications to the student thesis are added value to his/her CV and future academic  career.

However  the PhD title could be allowed 'outside post graduate university educated programs' to people who have accomplished recognized and official research programs, published in  papers, book chapters and or books, and communicated in international congresses. In that case the expertise meet in a phd title from an educative program and a professional research  practice couldn't be assessed into the same scale.

Dear All,

Thank you for being informative. I do understand that it has a less acceptance, and may different other type of reactions also.

As far my opinion, for an individual who is already having a Doctorate degree, it is a good idea to have several other Ph.D. degrees from international university. Being an academician you need to have publications (publish or perish), than having a degree for your publication is "not a bad deal".

Dear Rahul

In addition to Publish or perish phrase, there is another "patent and prosper" This was coined by CSIR when Prof. R.A. Mashelkar headed the council to encourage scientists to patent their discoveries.

Both "Publish or perish" and  "patent and prosper" are related to quality of research and publications.

Dear Rahul, In India, specifically in our University, a research scholar has to publish two papers before submission. These papers must be from PhD work.

It is a good idea @Rahul for multiple Phd titles; indeed researchers during their career do not focus only on one subject, many times they do research on different topics dealing with many academic fields or in multidisciplinary. So recognized works from talented scholars could be granted with Phd titles in the field related to  their discoveries or novelties.

Same for people who were/are engaged/employed  in official research projects (outside post graduate educated programs), with a recognized scientific activity from publications, communications, patenting  and else ; specially the engineering fields from technological and/or industrial advanced research. Generally technological enterprises or firms or research institutes specialized in technological or industrial purpose, run research departments/labs for improving or advancing their products or for technological issue Those employ largely research engineers with or without doctorate degree. May be phd titles could allow to research engineers to give academic courses into universities, disseminate to students their expertise from applied science, and make right connections between universities and technological/industrial sectors (which is a key problematic in many universities from under developed countries, for example in Algeria, most universities are quiet disconnected from the realm of the economic and industrial activities of their geographic zone,  or the national or regional one, or from real international cooperations)

Thank you All... ! 

Rahul

Australian universities have ventured down this course, notwithstanding comments about employability!

I was asked if I would like to do my PhD by researching and producing 3-4 sequential papers with an Introduction and Conclusion bringing the articles together.

There are many graduates now who have competed their PhDs this way.

Cheers

Dear @Rahul, there is ongoing discussion at Academia under the thread Can you get a PhD based on work or life experience?

http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/44382/can-you-get-a-phd-based-on-work-or-life-experience

Based on work or life experience, Indian Universities are awarding Honorary Doctorate to renowned persons.

Publication  are just  one aspect. .there's lot's more to any phd or fellowship 

In India, specifically in Government sector Universities, it is not possible.

Yes, most IVEY league university award Ph.D.based on three essays published in top tier journals..COLUMBIA, HARVARD, YALE, PRINCETON....they do not have dissertation 

Ph.D with out publications is not well recognized worldwide especially for jobs and postdoc positions. Ph. D. Thesis is an important opportunity to learn who to do research (experimental, analytical, data analysis formulation of results, writing of manuscripts, presentation etc). This whole exercise is very crucial for an academician or research scientis to enter to the job market. Thesis compilation and writing is also good training for writing any scientific article.

Dear Rahul Pratap Singh Kaurav ,

Presently, this is not allowed in Nigeria

This may be a little late, but for anyone still interested in this topic, you might find our project of interest -->

https://www.researchgate.net/project/Publishing-during-PhD-candidature

A PhD awarded for the submission of a portfolio of published research to the standard of a regular PhD.

Candidates may apply for the PhD by published work under Regulation 38 and the associated Guidance on the Requirements for the Award of Research Degrees. Candidates must be either:

• members of academic staff or administrative or library staff of equivalent status of the University and normally have been employed by the University for at least three years immediately prior to the submission of published work; or
• graduates of at least seven year’s standing normally holding a Bachelor’s degree or equivalent...

https://warwick.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/research/phdbypublishedwork/

Without publications ph.d.will not be recognized. If publish research papers in standard journals then the work will be considerable.

Dear Rahual,

My answer for your request in your question is goes in a paralell way with both colleagues answer of Dr. M. A. Gondal and Dr. Goli Srinivasarao.

Good question I like that

I have heard about this from a colleague. Tell me more about it

Follow

New information, I have no idea before about such PhD programs.

You can get an online PhD or Doctorate but it will be of limited value in the USA. AS to getting a PhD through publications, I am not aware of any.

I have no idea about it, following.

I heard on PhD by Distance from University of Reading and Sheffield (UK). But this is my first time hearing something like this. Interesting though.

What do you want to know? Some universities are 'awarding' such a thing (usually you produce two or three papers or more papers, depending on the discipline, publish them and then struggle to link them toghether), but if you really want a teaching position at a serious university in the US or Europe, you want to do a PhD by dissertation. This is the traditional and acceptable route.

It is certainly true that linking together multiple publications can be a challenge Liviu Damsa , I know from experience trying to weave 7 publications into a 'single, coherent thesis'!

You might want to check out our recent paper which investigated the different ways the candidates have gone about this.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07294360.2018.1498461?journalCode=cher20

Dear Shannon Mason , you do say that " the Thesis by Publication (TBP) is gaining increasing popularity in the social sciences ". Have you any info about TBP in other research areas?

Ljubomir Jacić Our focus has so far been on the social sciences, mainly because it has been much less common, at least in Australia (and because we are education researchers). From what I have read in the literature, the mode has been more common for much longer in Medicine and STEM in many countries. At the moment we are working on a study where our focus is on the breadth of TBPs across all fields, so when it's all done, I'll be sure to send you the details. :)

Dear Shannon Mason , good luck with new study where you focus on the breadth of TBPs across all fields ...

I can highly recommend Shannon Mason and Margaret K. Merga's work about PhD by publication. I have also written about how PhD students can evaluate which journals might be suitable for them to publish in, by analysing an educational technology journal as an example. Please feel free to check it out and see if it helps: https://ajet.org.au/index.php/AJET/article/view/4363/1553

I read the question carefully and also the comments, so understood the flow very well. As a matter of fact, I graduated under this scheme, the PhD by Prior Publication. I have listed down some of the universities that have offered such programs and happily found about 80 universities around the world ( http://www.advan-kt.com/phdbypub ). All these universities are openly accepting ISI-Listed, Q1 and Q2 papers and of course, not unauthenticated results. A great example for the publication history is that: the Fourier Tranform was held in publishing office for 10 years, as it was difficult to accept the results by prominent researchers; just to recall the publication difficulties. Let's come back to the intention that I wanted to share here. As for the Engineering field, 5 papers are generally accepted and as for the medical field, there number is reduced to 3. However, India has very different system as compared to UK because the UK universities are running behind ranking and greedy about newly generated knowledge to sustain ranking. So the THE world university ranking has strict criteria for ranking selection, which is calculated from 60% of new knowledge generation. That's why in history, most of the great breakthrough of sciences were discovered from UK, US, FRANCE, GERMAN and so on. To contradict this great achievement, the developing countries like India, Malaysia, and etc have their own system, counting stages and academic years instead of produce quality publication to speed up the growth of sciences. This is not to degrade India but to share the truth because I like India very much than any other country in this globe. As a matter of fact, I'm Malaysia born Indian. I published 1 paper in Academy of Sciences, India, an institution which was established by Nobel Laurate Sir CV. Raman. Why am I telling all these long stories because, India has 35,000 higher education institutions but very rare to see their rankings around the first 100. I have Recalling history, Sir Isaac Newton was appointed as Professor of Science for his publication at Cambridge, The Optics. So I totally disagree with a system in which annual count, supervisor signature, presentation and such are counted for PhD award. Rather, I prefer to see substantial output from research and breakthrough that changes the fields entirely. FYI : I was given a certificate for Outstanding Contribution for Reviewing Process by Journal of Materials Pros. Technology - ELSEVIER in 2017.

In India you may try for D.Litt via Publication route, it depends upon university to university (with reference to number of publication, type of experience , qualification requirement ), for details you may have to approach the concern University and know the details, you may require to pay a very little fee for evaluation of your publication work. and you my have to submit all your publication work, consolidated publication work, you may also able to link all your publication work with reference to D Litt that you want(i.e D.Litt (Management), DLitt (English) )

You may also try in other country to get PhD via Publication route, but it takes 9 to 12 month time, as they would need time to evaluate your work (before you submit your work for Phd by publication , my recommendation please double check your work because your fee for evaluation should not go for waste (If in the evaluation the concern university finds that the work is not upto for PhD then the entire fee payed for evaluation will not be ideally refunded so both time and money are at ? mark)PhD or D.Litt via publication is not that easy the way people think, it is actually more harder then the regular PhD

However if you had really done some independent good research based publication work, or authentic work for the society or community/fields of your subject , you may also be qualified for Honorary PhD in any University India or abroad, for that you may approach the concern university, to my understanding In India for an Honorary PhD there is no fees involved however you or your representative may required to submit the detail work which been done by you.

At Makerere University in Uganda, you may do a "Thesis by Compilation". You select 3-5 peer-reviewed papers in accepted journals (or IEEE conferences for Electrical Engineering) and append an introduction section at the beginning and a discussion section at the end to tell the story of your research. Each paper is a chapter. Unpublished manuscripts or those submitted pending acceptance may be included as chapters, if the candidate already meets the 3 paper minimum.

Dear Maximus, it is very bad "academic" practice to obtain Ph.D by means of compilation and possible plagiarism.

I am interested to know more about the PhD by publication and what it take? How much could that cost?

DIVERSITY & ORIGINALITY vs. COHERENCE

The coherent element between the refereed papers presented for a PhD by publication is often over emphasized. I have my reservations.

I see no outstanding academic feat in having a strong element of connectedness (coherence) between the papers especially if this comes to the detriment of:

(a) Originality. Candidates who successfully manage to achieve a PhD by publications in science normally present no more than three or four papers revolving on the same theme or repetitive methodology with one paper building on the other (there’s a limit on how much you can keep adding onto the previous study to produce a coherent narrative. This could mean that the level of originality would decrease from one paper to the next.

(b) Widespread knowledge. The level of the student’s (author’s) widespread generation of new knowledge could also be adversely affected since the papers would be closely related to each other (strong coherent body).

and

(c) Publication list. There is a limit to the number of papers which can be kept being added (and repeated) onto previous studies.

I feel that the requirement for coherence is not the right approach for defending the standards of a PhD by published works, whether retrospective (ie. by prior publications) or prospective (when you start publishing your studies with the university you have registered your application). One has to understand that the point of departure with a PhD by publications (sometimes called, article-based PhD) is totally different from when you decide to undertake a conventional or traditional PhD by monograph with only ideas or proposal in your hands.

So, whereas when you go for a monograph of a single specialised subject it is justified to have a coherent narrative as there is practically no possibility of avoiding coherence, for a thesis by publication (involving a synthesis, commentary or integrative chapter, which is basically a form of compilation written independently by the student), it is a different story. To start with, for this 'compilation' you only need to prepare a 10-15,000 commentary constituting a summary of the appended papers, whereas with a one-topic monograph you can go up to 100,000 words and sometimes even more writing on the same subject.

Needless to say, the PhD by publication student should clarify the actual contribution to knowledge, especially if the papers are written by several authors. What’s important is that the commentary should not provide new results, but should critique the papers and preferably offer new conclusions since the extent of the journal articles normally does not allow this kind of longer discussion.

In brief, I feel that coherence should not remain central and more weight should be directed on single-authorship (as much as possible), number of papers published, originality and diversity or widespread contribution to knowledge. In my opinion, these should be the distinct features of this relatively new type of PhD.

I do not want to be interpreted as saying that one can diversify from one field of science to a completely different area and expect to receive a PhD. Such distinct feat should be recognized by an Honorary Award such as Hon DSc. So, you cannot expect to receive a PhD covering extremely varied themes all together, for example: public health; biology and pharmacology at the same time! However, as long as you have a common denominator between all your journal papers (eg health science or public health) the candidate presenting a portfolio of loosely connected papers should not have his/her application for a PhD by publication being rejected.

I can be contacted on [email protected]

Charles Micallef Author of: ‘Critical analysis: a vital element in healthcare research’.